“When do we leave?”
“I don’t have my sleeping bag here. It’s back at my house.”
“I have enough gear for both of us.”
Liz didn’t know if that was a double entendre or not, but she could hope. “Food?”
“I’ll take care of it,” he said. “I can be ready in twenty. You got hiking shoes?”
“In the car,” she said.
“Meet you out front.”
Eli moved away. She’d never been able to describe his walk. It wasn’t a saunter. It wasn’t pretty like a glide. It was economical and efficient with a sense of purpose. She shook herself awake from the image of his butt walking away from her naked and left the house to check in with Molly, who was finished with the land-working gig. Her sis was breathing hardand a little milk had leaked around the nursing cups and through her nursing bra.
“Thanks for the gig,” Liz called, waiting beside her Subaru.
“God, I hate this heat. It’s September, not the middle of freaking summer,” Molly griped. “You got a job? What job?”
“I just got a job from a member of the Ainsworth witch clan. Woman named Golda Ainsworth Holcomb. She used your name.”
Molly shrugged and trudged onto the porch, where she dropped to the steps in the shade and fanned herself. Her red curls waved in the hand-breeze. She leaned against a massive stone column and said, “Everyone wants an Everhart these days. Butson of a witch on a switch,” she swore, witch-style, “I’m getting too old for this.”
“Dumas is paying you a fortune. You’d have taken this gig if you had to push yourself around with a walker.”
“True. And with the house nearly finished, I need extra money to complete the furnishings. Top of the line all the way.” In a part of the ongoing para war, Molly’s house had been the target of arson, a magical firebombing, and had burned to the ground, even with thehedge of thornsward protecting it. Since Yellowrock’s enemies had done the firebombing, Molly and her family were rebuilding and staying at the inn free of charge until they could go to their new home. “What kind of gig?” Moll asked, closing her eyes and fanning herself.
Liz said, “Looking for a lost dog.” Casually, she added, “Eli and I are going together. It”—she paused deliberately—“may take until tomorrow, so if I’m not back tonight don’t get worried.”
Molly smiled. “Finally got him to agree to another date, did you?”
“A job. We’ll see if it turns into a date.”
Her sister’s smile widened. “Hmmm. Have fun.” There was a lot of emphasis on the wordfun. “I’m going to shower and feed Cassy. Later, sis.” Molly grunted to her feet and went inside, closing the enormous carved door.
Liz walked down the steps to her vehicle and put on her hiking shoes.
When Eli appeared, he tossed a lightweight titanium-framed backpack into the open Subaru hatch. “Can you fit your gear inside?” he asked. There were two sleeping bags in vacuum-sealed plastic strapped to the top, and when she looked inside, she counted twelve dehydrated meals, threepackets of salmon, several bags of nuts, a tiny French press, a bag of coffee, and a lightweight, deep-sided fry pan. She transferred her essentials from her overnight bag to a zippered travel bag and tucked the bag into a roomy pocket of the backpack. She added a pair of birdwatching binoculars, a lighter and a bag of corn chips for starting a fire, and her battery stone, which held a magical charge to fill her other amulets if necessary. She slung it on and adjusted the straps. She could manage this, even wearing and carrying all the amulets and the battery, which added eight pounds to her overall load.
She looked Eli over. He was carrying a much larger backpack by the straps, and his appeared full. And strapped with tools. And heavy. “You’re carrying the water,” she guessed. And then she saw the weapons. He had a shotgun in some kind of sling, a semiautomatic handgun in a thigh rig on his right, a silver-plated vamp-killer sheathed on his left, and a machete attached to the backpack. And there was a hunting knife peeking out of a sheath on his belt.
“Going bear hunting, Captain America?”
“Protection from possible werewolves.”
“There haven’t been any seen around here in months.”
His expression didn’t change. His body position didn’t change.
Liz tilted her head and raised her brows in an expression that saidwhatever, and shrugged out of the backpack, now carrying it with both straps slung over one shoulder. “My car or yours?”
“Mine.”
She grabbed her walking stick, a fifty-five-inch-tall, hand-carved stick she’d used for years.
“No weapons?” he asked.
Liz touched her necklace. It was forty-two inches of large polished nuggets, several carved rock beads, three silver amulets, and her grandmother’s wedding ring. The metals had been charged by a metal witch. Each stone and amulet contained a different working. The necklace was heavy, but it was her best defense, especially when used in conjunction with the big-mama power sink, a fist-sized hunk of granite she’d added to her travel bag essentials. She could use it to draw raw power straight from any partially buried boulder she could find. She slid the nuggets between her fingers and made sure the clasp was tightly closed. When shereleased that catch, it allowed all the stones to slide free, to be put together in a different configuration, or for independent magical purposes.
